


Death

by Faiz



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Gen, Season 3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faiz/pseuds/Faiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fire burns. It destroys. It’s death. It’s the root of all the problem’s in Anders’ life. But right now, it’s also the solution. </p><p>Companion fic to "Life" by supersmileys</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supersmileys (gingerninja)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerninja/gifts).



Fire is death. It destroys, it moves, it grows.

Often, it’s a sign of people dying.

"Anders Johnson, are you ready to commit to something so painful, and so permanent?" Colin asks, as they stand face to face in the same room where Colin had first struck up the idea of an alliance. Anders looked different, much different than he had that day. But despite seeming like an empty shell of his former self, Colin can still see a sparkle of determination in his lifeless eyes.

Anders nodded at him, and stepped forward.

"I’m ready." His voice was cold, lifeless. 

Colin gave a bit of a sigh. It was going to be so difficult to get everything cleaned up when they were done. And he had just cleaned this carpet. But he knew what had to be done.

He stepped forward as well.

*********

Anders was passionate. He always had been. And every since Axl had become Odin, he was eager to try to finally prove himself to his family. To earn his rightful seat among them.

But Bragi had burned all the ties to his family. They were gone. Turned completely to ash and destroyed, never to be fixed again.

*******

Before all this, Anders had decided to go visit Ty. Ty was always to closest to Anders, even if they didn’t talk much anymore. But there was a hole in his heart that he desparately wanted to be filled. And maybe the now cheery mortal could help.

Ty’s little candle of hope was once again lit after his near death experience. But it burned too bright at times. He’s too busy living his own life to the highest degree that he doesn’t even notice anything going around him anymore. His head is in the clouds, that he doesn’t even notice everything falling apart at the seams and burning down all around him.

"No, but really. I’ve never been happier than I’ve been these days. Lance and I have actually started to become good friends you know?" Ty said as he happily started bustling around the kitchen making something to eat.

Anders knew Lance was a good guy. Hell, he called him to tell him about Ty. At least Ty wasn’t lonely anymore.

But of course Ty was so happy that he didn’t even wonder if maybe Anders wanted to eat. He didn’t even notice when Anders just up and left with the rest of his beer, still too busy chatting with no one in particular about how fantastic his life was.

It took Ty the longest to realize that Anders had never returned, and he was the last one to find out what had happened.

His flame of hope dimmed.

********

After that, he had turned to Mike.

He felt sick as he was at the door of the former bar, and felt like he was going to vomit as he walked in to see Mike and Michele busy at work fixing up the place to be a nice, proper place to live in. It actually looked very nice, and Anders felt a twinge of pride in his heart to see all the hard work his brother did to make it look nice.

"Anders? What are you doing here?" Mike looked up and wiped the sweat off his brow.

"I wanted to see you." Anders said, trying to keep a quiver out of his voice.

Mike surveyed him, clearly not believing him. “Yeah, right. What do you really want? And you smell like alcohol! Don’t tell me you’ve done something stupid again."

Anders flinched at that. “Oh…I just wanted to see if you needed help." He asked in a much smaller voice.

Mike just brushed him off and turned back to his work. “Michele and I are fine. You can leave and do whatever the hell it is you do.

Ty didn’t need him, Mike didn’t need him. Anders was learning that he really was that useless when it came to life. The only time they were ever going to acknowledge him was if they needed his powers. And they weren’t acknowledging Anders, they were acknowledging Bragi. Because Bragi is all they cared about, and that’s all they could see when they saw Anders.

Anders was horribly alone.

His flame of hope sputtered.

********

His baby brother. Maybe his baby brother could talk to him. Give him love. Show him that he’s not useless.

Axl is much happier than he had been for awhile. He’s going out, he’s drinking. He’s being a normal guy again. He’s playing video games with Zeb when Anders arrives, and Zeb quickly flits out of the room when he notices who enters. The mortal already knows to get the hell out whenever Anders is present, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. 

"I’ve been doing really good, you know? I’m getting really confident that we’ll find Frigg soon! We’ve kinda dropped your method entirely, and it’s gotten waaaay easier after we did that. I’ve finally let Gaia go, and everythings become…You know, great!"

Of course. Anders always fucked things up, so obviously everything would be better after he was gone. They were all flames, burning brightly. They were alive, they moved, they did things. They were what human beings were supposed to be. Passionate, and joyful. Full of hope. Anders wasn’t any of that. Not anymore. 

He left Axl’s flat with tears streaming down his eyes.

His flame of hope had been snuffed.

********

There were candles sputtering all across the room. None of them were sure exactly how long they had been sitting there, but if the candles were going out, then that must been that it had been an extraordinarily long time.

They weren’t even present when it happened. And it wasn’t until then that they realized that while their candles and lives were getting brighter, someone else’s was getting dimmer. 

Mike had woken up to see an urn sitting on a counter, with a note from Colin saying:

‘Maybe you should have noticed.’ -Colin

Two weeks. Anders had been gone for two whole weeks and they didn’t even fucking notice. And now he wasn’t even ever going to come back, and suddenly everything fell into place and they realized that they never even noticed what was wrong.

But now their brother was ash. He gave into death’s cleansing embrace, without ever telling his own family.

******* 

Anders Johnson screamed. This was the most emotion he had ever shown in months, and it was hideous pain-filled screams as his flesh sizzled, and his hair burned. Colin coughed and sputtered at the smoke and the smell of burning human flesh. It would have been easier. He could have just gone ‘poof’ and he was gone. But this was one of Anders’ last requests. And despite all of it, he was going to one up his brothers by actually giving Anders what he wanted.

Even if that meant dragging out the pain.

Then there was silence. It was done.

His brothers were flames, and they burnt so brightly while Anders slowly disappeared. Truly dying was at least better than being alive but not feeling. He couldn’t handle seeing his family so happy while he just fucked up over and over again.

If you get too close to a flame. You burn. 

And burn he did.


End file.
